Parenting Styles and Conceptions of Parental Authority during Adolescence

Abstract

Reports of parenting styles were assessed in 110 primarily white, middle-class sixth, eighth, and tenth graders (M = 11.98, 13.84, and 16.18 years of age) and their parents (108 mothers and 92 fathers). Parents judged the legitimacy of parental authority and rated family conflict and rules regarding 24 hypothetical moral, conventional, personal, multifaceted (containing conventional and personal components), prudential, and friendship issues. Adolescents viewed their parents as more permissive and more authoritarian than parents viewed themselves, whereas parents viewed themselves as more authoritative than did adolescents. Parents' parenting styles differentiated their conceptions of parental authority, but adolescents' perceptions did not. Differences were primarily over the boundaries of adolescents' personal jurisdiction. Furthermore, conceptions of parental authority and parenting styles both contributed significantly to emotional autonomy and adolescent-parent conflict. The implications of the findings for typological models of parenting and distinct domain views of social-cognitive development are discussed.